


i'll be yours to keep

by windfalling



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-28 23:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15717714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windfalling/pseuds/windfalling
Summary: The bed is cold when he wakes.After Rufus comes back and Rittenhouse is defeated, Rufus and Jiya have a long-overdue conversation.





	i'll be yours to keep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/gifts).



> thank you for your patience and for helping out <3  
> prompt: rufus/jiya post everything au. after everything settles and there are no more missions, what do they do with their life?

 

The bed is cold when Rufus wakes.

He’d reached out in his sleep, finding only air where her warmth should have been, and the cool sheets had jolted him awake. In his sleep-dazed mind, he forgets, for a moment, why Jiya isn’t there.

It had been the stupidest argument. He’d stolen one of her french fries, and she’d suddenly gotten all prickly on him. It wasn’t as if it were the first time he’d done it, and _she'd_ always been the one to grab food off of his plate in the past, so he hadn’t understood why things would be different now. Things had somehow escalated from there.

_Sometimes it’s like you’re not even here,_ he remembers saying. She’d flinched, then gone quiet, and shut down on him in a way she never used to. Even back in Chinatown, she’d yelled right back at him, never backing down. But this time had been different.

She’d left to stay with Lucy for the night. Rufus reaches for his phone, scrolls to her name, hovers over it. Then he sees the time. Maybe calling her at two in the morning isn’t the best idea, but having her pissed at him for that is better than being frozen out, he thinks, so he does.

A phone rings from inside the apartment.

Rufus scrambles to his feet and he’s in the living room before the third ring.

Jiya’s lying on their couch, a blanket wrapped around her, propped up on her elbow with the phone at her ear. She’s peering at him, all confused and bleary-eyed, but she’s _here._ She came back.

“God, Jiya,” he says, still catching his breath. He flips on the lamp. “That was some horror movie shit right there. I thought I was about to be _murdered_. Why didn’t you tell me you were here? Why are you sleeping on the _couch?_ ”

The sleep clears from her face as she squints against the light. Jiya swallows, looking down at the floor, and then back up at him. “I missed you,” she finally says, voice small.

Just like that, his breath goes out of him again. Rufus reaches her in three steps, sliding next to her on the couch and pulling her into his arms. At his touch, she relaxes immediately, the tension in her shoulders melting away.

“I missed you, too. Look, I won’t do it again, I’ll buy my own fries next time—”

“It’s not the fries,” she says, pulling back to look at him.

Rufus searches her face. _I’m not the same Jiya you knew,_ she’d said, and no, she isn’t. This Jiya is all sharp lines and hard edges, guarded even around him, and no longer smiles as easily as she had before. “I know,” he says heavily.

“Some days, it’s like I never left,” Jiya says quietly. “Other days, I feel like I’m in this wonderful dream and I’m just waiting to wake up. I had to build a life without you, Rufus. And I did. I just—I forget how to be here, sometimes.”

She’d given up three years of her life for him. Would have given up more, if their calculations had been even a fraction more off-base. When he thinks of what she has—and would—sacrifice for him, his chest aches. He makes a vow to himself to spend the rest of his life proving that he deserves it.

“I’m sorry we didn’t come sooner.”

Jiya goes tense under his hands. “I told you that I didn’t regret it,” she says, eyes suddenly fierce. “I still don’t.”

A memory rises, suddenly, of her showing him the dirty, bed bug-infested room she’d slept in the saloon: _It doesn’t matter what I want anymore._

“I know,” he says gently. “I’m still sorry. Three years is—a long time. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you.”

She blinks fast, eyes wet, and hides her face in his chest. He rubs circles on her back and holds her until the hitch in her breath goes quiet. They’ve dealt with premonitions of death and faced far worse. Rufus may not have visions, but he knows they’ll get through this. Fate, after all, is not as immutable as they’d thought.

“I know you’ve changed,” he murmurs in her ear. “You’re this new badass sexy Jiya who can probably bench press my weight without breaking a sweat—” he earns a muffled laugh at this, and he smiles, “—and I love you. That hasn’t changed. That’s never going to change.”

Jiya lifts her head. He smooths away the lingering wetness at her cheeks, and her eyes drift to his mouth a second before she leans in, slanting her lips over his. He presses her down onto the couch, her dark hair fanning out below her, and she looks so goddamn beautiful that for a moment, he can’t speak.

“Jiya,” he murmurs, just to have her name in his mouth. God, he’s missed her.

Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak. Just holds his face in her hands, staring up at him, until her breathing slows and matches with his. There’s a slight furrow to her brow, like she’s concentrating on his face, memorising it. She blinks, and her eyes unfocus, only to startle back to him when he presses a quick, chaste kiss to her mouth.

“I’m here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She lets out a shuddering breath, closing her eyes. Then she opens them and says, “I’m sorry for freaking out on you.”

Rufus has tried very hard not to think about Chinatown. But he has to—they both do, he thinks. And when he reflects upon the look on her face and how quick she was to go into Fight Mode, he thinks he gets it. She doesn’t talk about what she went through, and he’ll never understand it, not really. But he can meet her halfway.

“It’s all right. Like I said, I won’t do it again.”

“Okay.”

“Good.”

They both stare at each other until Jiya breaks first, the laughter behind her compressed lips breaking through. “God, I can’t believe we’re actually having a serious conversation over _fries._ ”

“Hey, I get it. They were pretty damn good fries.”

Jiya snorts. “Yeah, okay.”

“They were a solid seven, at least, on the fry scale. With one being cold McDonald’s fries.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Those don’t even merit a number.”

“You’re right. They’re a zero on the scale,” he says gravely, and she nods in agreement. “Here, how about this—we do that Lord of the Rings marathon you’ve wanted to do since forever.”

She gives him an amused look. “You really don’t have to make up anything to me, Rufus.”

“I know. But I was thinking, too—that trip you’d always wanted to go on, after everything—”

Understanding dawns. “New Zealand?”

“Yeah. If you still wanted to, that is.”

“I’d love to,” she says softly, eyes bright with excitement.

He smiles. “It’s a date, then.”

Jiya’s hand curves around the back of his neck, her thumb stroking up and down. She slides her other palm under his shirt, resting against his stomach, and he exhales at her touch. “I love you, Rufus.”

He leans in to kiss her, and there is very little talking after that. She’s here, and they’re both alive. It’s enough.

 


End file.
